1. Field
The present disclosure relates to sanitary showers and the water conduits which supply water to the showers. Those conduits are typically connected at one end to a stationary showerhead and/or one or more hand held showerheads. This disclosure relates to adjustable adapters for fluidly interconnecting these conduits to a water supply in a manner that accommodates varying thickness of the shower enclosure wall.
2. Description of Related Art
Although shower bars are known to have several benefits, particularly with regard to safety, it is often difficult to install them without significantly altering surrounding wall structures. Conventional shower bars are attached to walls and installed alongside hand-held showers. As such, in addition to the alteration of surrounding wall structures, water sources for hand-held showers must also be routed. Unfortunately, most of the routing requires demolition as well as re-routing of plumbing fixtures located behind walls.
There are numerous existing arrangements of showerheads and means for supplying water to them. But it is often difficult to install them without significantly altering the walls of the shower enclosure, especially when those walls comprise ceramic tile applied over a cementatious base. Varying thicknesses of shower enclosure walls also presents installation problems. An additional installation problem is providing a strong connection of showerhead piping to the enclosure, especially in a hospitality setting. In such settings, a shower bar is often used to facilitate placement of a showerhead at varying heights relative to the bather.
Examples of shower bars, showerheads and means used to attach them to a shower enclosure include the following: U.S. Pat. No. 3,982,285 issued Sep. 28, 1976 (describing a shower bar with a slidably mounted showerhead thereon which is fluidly and fixedly connected to a water supply pipe without means for adjustment to accommodate thickness of shower enclosure walls); U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,552 issued May 12, 1998 (disclosing a shower bar whose upper portion is physically, but not hydraulically, connected to the enclosure wall of the shower; U.S. Pat. No. 6,438,767 (describing a shower bar hydraulically connected to a water supply without an adjustable to accommodate differing wall thickness); and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/037389 A1 published Feb. 18, 2010 (describing a non-adjustable connection of water supply to shower bar through a wall mounted temperature control fitting).